Find Me

by Romily Bernard

  “Is he one of those people you hacked? Maybe his wife, his girlfriend. Maybe someone used you and told him.”

  “No.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I know everyone I hack, Lil. He’s just sniffing around for Dad.”

  “He said he was here for Tessa.”

  Her name makes me pause. It sounds foul in Lily’s mouth, or maybe it’s just the way I hear it. I can’t really gauge my sister’s reaction. Is she upset because of Tessa? Because it reminds her of our mom? Or is she just scared?

  “Yeah, well, he said he was, but he’s really just looking for Dad. He’s just trying to look for weaknesses. Why do you think he said that stuff about how I’d need his numbers? He thinks Dad will contact us and I’ll get scared.”

  I can’t tell if I sound convincing enough. My tone wiggles between aggrieved and outraged. It would probably fool a teacher, would definitely fool Bren.

  But this is Lily. My sister. The only person who knows me. Really knows me. What works on everyone else doesn’t work on her, so I launch into another conversational assault tactic: misdirection.

  “I’m not the criminal in the family,” I say.

  Except I am.

  I am more my father’s daughter than I like to admit. I just have different dirty little secrets. I cross my arms again, trying to look properly pissed off, but it’s really to help me hold down the shaking. Now that Carson’s gone, my skin is trying to shiver loose from my bones.

  “You have to stop, Wick.”

  And then what? Trust that Bren and Todd will take care of us? Trust that we’re going to be okay? I can’t do it. I don’t think I have it in me, and for a second, I want to cry. When did I stop believing in happy endings? Maybe I never did.

  “We need the money.”

  “We have Bren and Todd right now.”

  “Exactly. We have them right now. What happens after that?” Irritated, I shove one hand through my hair, resisting the urge to pull it out.

  I’m proud of my sister. I really am. She’s lovely, and I often wish I were more like her: sweeter, softer, lighter, brighter. Even though I know I’m not and probably never will be. Maybe if I were more like Lily, Bren would like me more. Maybe I’d be happier. Maybe we’d get to stay.

  But I’m not like her, and sooner or later, everyone realizes what we are: trash. And then it’s finished. I shouldn’t have to explain this stuff again. Lily might be younger, but she’s seen the same crap I have. She should know.

  No, she does know, I decide, looking at the way Lily’s mouth is twisted like she’s chewing on carpet tacks. No, she definitely knows. She’s just in freaking denial.

  Anger fills me faster than floodwater. “Don’t you remember where we came from?”

  “Yes! And I don’t want to go back! I want to be normal!”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “Don’t swear.” She sounds so small I feel like I’m picking on her. “Bren will make you put a quarter in the swear jar.”

  “All the more reason to keep working then.”

  She pushes out a short, dry laugh. “You’re going to ruin everything.”

  The words hit with a slap. Actually, I wish she had slapped me. It would have hurt less. But I’m not the only one like our dad. Lily also knows how to wound.

  “Everything’s already ruined, Lily.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  .....................................................................

  I went after him. It’s true. I started it.

  I’m just as bad as he is. Worse.

  —Page 31 of Tessa Waye’s diary

  It’s almost eleven o’clock, and I’m too wired to sleep. Todd’s working late. Lily and Bren have gone to bed. And my stalker still hasn’t taken my bait.

  How is that possible? I push away from my computer and rub my aching neck. It still doesn’t help. The muscles feel like knotted ropes. Am I dealing with someone who knows about Trojan horses? Maybe the email account hasn’t been checked? Maybe—

  Something scrapes outside my window, and I stiffen. In the dark, the tree branches twitch like spider legs.

  It’s nothing. Has to be.

  Another scrape.

  What if it’s whoever left the diary?

  In my head, I tie up the words, but they still escape. There’s no way anyone would dare. I mean, Bren is right down the hallway. Todd could come home any minute. It’s too risky.

  So why have my palms gone damp?

  I roll my chair a little farther back and stare at the open window. The lamplight catches just the edges of the trees, but nothing else. I opened the window earlier because it felt so stuffy after Carson left. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

  Something below the window rustles. It’s even closer than before.

  It’s moving up.

  I drop both feet to the floor, digging in with my toes like a runner ready to sprint. It’s maybe three strides to the window. Two if I really stretch. So I’ll run over and slam the window down. Easy, right?

  Unless I get grabbed.

  I make the distance in two strides and seize the window’s edge. Outside, the tree shakes hard, and one hand slaps down against the sill. A scream climbs up my throat . . . and lodges.

  It’s Griff.

  “Sorry.” His face bobs into the light, the surrounding darkness making his smile look even whiter. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  He’s dangling half in, half out of the tree next to my window. His legs are tangled in a branch, and both forearms are braced on the windowsill. He looks seconds away from laughing.

  Like this is some joke.

  Like I’m some normal girl who doesn’t have to worry about being stalked.

  It kind of makes me want to punch him.

  “If you weren’t trying to scare me, then why the hell are you climbing a tree outside my window?”

  Griff’s smile freezes. “I wanted to see you.”

  My heart rate spikes. “What the frick for?”

  “You never answered me.”

  Never answered him? It takes me a full five seconds before I realize what Griff’s talking about. The text. I never responded. I bite down on my lower lip, trying to think of something to say. I ought to ask him why he thought I would answer. I ought to tell him to piss off.

  But I don’t. Or maybe I can’t. I mean, the guy is dangling from my bedroom window. He scaled a tree for me. And all for what? So he could make sure I’m okay? I don’t get it. I chew my lower lip a little harder. “Why do you care? It’s not like we talk that much.”

  “Yeah, I know. I think we should fix that.” Griff leans a little farther in and looks around. Heat surges across my face when I realize I have dirty laundry to his left and discarded paperbacks to his right. “So can I come in?”

  “Uh.” No! My room is a mess and Bren would have a heart attack and you shouldn’t even be here. “Okay.”

  Griff’s grin slings wide. “Great!”

  He heaves himself up a little and pauses, gaze speared to mine. Suddenly, we’re close again, and the air between us curls.

  His left eyebrow rises. I wish I could do that. “Um, a little space?”

  “Oh!” I shuffle backward and my lab partner slides, hands first, onto my floor. He’s still wearing the faded polo and khakis from earlier. I’m not usually a fan of anything preppy, but this . . . really works.

  Griff looks up at me, his grin crooked, amused. “Didn’t think you’d actually agree.”

  Yeah, well, that makes two of us. I scoot to the side and drop into my desk chair, sitting on my shaking hands. “What do you want?”

  Griff shrugs, still looking around the room like he’s studying some museum exhibit. I mentally will him to look at me.

  What does he find so freaking interesting anyway? I tell myself I don’t care what he sees, but inside I’m praying I haven’t left any underwear lying around.

 
; “I always wanted to see where you lived now.”

  “Why?” He’s staring at my bed now and the heat in my cheeks, already scalding, turns nuclear. “Were you expecting a coffin or something?”

  “Of course not. You sleep hanging upside down, right?”

  I give Griff a stony look, but it doesn’t hold. He’s funny. I’ve always had a soft spot for funny. A smile starts to worm across my lips, and Griff catches it. The earlier crooked, evil grin stretches even wider, and I have to remind myself not to gawk. But this is Griff. In my bedroom.

  Wanting to talk.“Why are you being so . . . so . . .” I refuse to say the word flirty.

  Griff smiles. “Because I wanted you the moment I first saw you, but mostly because Matthew Bradford threw your lunch into the school fountain last week, so you let the air out of his car tires.”

  “Tire. I only did one.”

  “Yeah, I know. I did the other.”

  “How did you . . .”

  “Know you were there?” Griff stands up, and for the first time, I notice his polo isn’t fashionably faded so much as frayed and worn. He doesn’t look thin. He lookshungry. “I was one car over, hiding out instead of going to lunch. You’re the first girl I’ve ever met who’s smart and never plays stupid. You’re small, but you don’t back down.”

  Griff switches his attention to my bookshelf, tracing his fingers over ten different Stephen King novels and pausing when he hits Jodi Picoult’s entire oeuvre. If he asks, I’m going to swear they’re Bren’s.

  “So is that a good enough answer?” he asks.

  I start to,speak but my computer chirps, and my heart leapfrogs into my throat. Someone just clicked on my virus link. Someone took my bait. I spin my chair around and hear Griff move a little closer.

  “What is it?” Griff’s on the other side of my desk with Bren’s battered copy of Eat, Pray, Love in one hand. He eyes my computer with interest. “Something going on?”

  “No, nothing.”

  Except it isn’t. It’s everything. I press into my chair until the plastic pinches the knobs of my spine.

  My Trojan horse virus worked. The email receiver must have clicked my link, which means I’m in. I can see what they see, get into their files, go through their lives.

  And take back my own.

  “What are you doing?”

  I jump, twist in my chair and realize, too late, that Griff is next to me now. He’s close. Close enough to smell his mint gum. Close enough to make me panic.

  This won’t work. I need to get rid of him. I stand up, keeping my body between Griff and the computer screen. “You have to go now.”

  He cocks his head, smiling like I’ve just said some joke he’s desperate to understand. “But I just got here.”

  “You have to go.”

  Griff’s eyes flick beyond my shoulder to my computer, and then return to me. He thinks I’m being weird. Hell, I am being weird, but I don’t care. I need some privacy right now.

  “Okay, fine, but close the window after me.” Griff’s devious grin has returned. He straddles my windowsill with more grace than you would think such a thin, tall guy would have. “You never know who might climb up that tree again, Wicked.”

  Wicked. It makes my heart do a silly, flippy thing. I open my mouth to retort, but Griff’s already gone. The tree shakes twice as he scales down the trunk, and then there’s nothing. I shut the window, check the locks, and close the blinds. When I turn around, the air is straitjacket tight. It feels like those moments before a movie begins, like the whole world is waiting.

  But I’m not waiting anymore. I kick my chair out of the way and, still standing, hunch over the keyboard, pulling up another program. I punch in a few lines of code, accessing the remote computer’s webcam.

  “Come on, you little bastard,” I mutter as the computer processes, turning my code into a rope bridge into someone else’s world. Another few seconds and the black camera window at the top of my screen flickers.

  I’m in.

  Now I can see them.

  Or rather, I can see her, and when I do, my stomach hits bottom. Suddenly, I’m hollow.

  I know that girl. I knew her when she was in third grade and I was in middle school. I knew her when we passed in the grocery store and no longer said hello. I knew her.

  I know her.

  The girl who clicked on my virus is Tally Waye. Tessa’s sister.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  .....................................................................

  I think my mom knows something’s wrong.

  No matter how many times I say I’m fine,

  she just keeps asking.

  —Page 24 of Tessa Waye’s diary

  When I wake up, it’s after ten. The house is quiet. My bed feels great. I want to go back to sleep.

  But I’m wide awake.

  All I can see is Tally Waye’s hollowed-out face framed in my computer’s screen. Even if I close my eyes, she’s still there.

  Find me.

  Not freaking likely. I roll onto my side, eyes drifting to the window Griff came through. I’m not sure I want to think about that either, but it’s too late because I already want to smile.

  Dammit. I’ll find coffee instead. It’s Saturday morning, which should mean one of Bren’s big breakfasts is waiting downstairs, and if she’s distracted by making pancakes or whatever, I have a way better chance of finding coffee than I do of finding whatever Tally wants.

  I pad down the hallway, checking the front window more from habit than worry. Hmm. Bren’s car is gone. The driveway is empty.

  Crap. Does this mean no breakfast? Because that means no coffee.

  At first, I think it’s odd she’s gone because Bren lives for using her Williams-Sonoma waffle maker, but then I remember she was taking Lily for ballet sign-ups this morning. It’s just me.

  “Morning, Wicket.”

  I jump. “Holy shit!”

  “Sorry! Sorry!” Todd’s standing at the foot of the stairs with two cups of coffee. It’s Saturday, but he’s in a suit and tie. Headed for the office? If he is, he shouldn’t. He looks like hell. His eyes are bloodshot, like he didn’t sleep at all.

  Shit. I’ve been so wrapped up in myself, I didn’t think how much Tessa’s death must hurt Todd. He wants to save the world, and he couldn’t even save this one girl. It’s got to be devastating. Todd was so quick to stand up for me; what would he have done to save a girl like Tessa?

  “Really didn’t mean to scare you,” Todd says.

  I wave away his objection. At the rate I’m going, I’ll have a heart attack and none of this will matter anyway.

  “Don’t worry about it.” I rub my right temple, where I can still feel an echo of yesterday’s headache coming back. “I don’t suppose one of those is for me?”

  Todd gives me a little smile. “Only if you don’t tell Bren.” He passes one mug to me, and I take a deep gulp. He’s put too much sugar in it and the coffee’s hot enough to burn off a layer of my tongue, but it’s still wonderful. Two more swallows and I can feel my skin start to perk up. By the fourth my eyelids don’t feel so saggy.

  “Mum’s the word,” I promise, and finish off the last of the coffee in a long pull.

  Todd laughs. “You’re funny, you know that?” He sips at his, watching me. “Bren thinks the caffeine will stunt your growth.”

  I grimace. “Too late for that.”

  “I was wondering if you could look at Bren’s computer for me. I think I hit a wrong button again.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Todd is always hitting wrong buttons. He knows the Blue Screen of Death better than anyone I’ve ever met. It would be annoying if I weren’t kind of grateful for the distraction. In the five months we’ve been here, I’ve reformatted Bren’s computer twice because of “wrong buttons.” Luckily, their office manager keeps up with the work computers; otherwise, dealing with the Callaway computers would be a full-time job.
“No problem.”

  “Thanks . . . so what are you going to do today?”

  “Don’t know.” I have an English paper due on Tuesday, the last of the financials to finish for my customer, and then there’s Tally Waye. I inspect the bottom of my coffee cup and think I should just go ahead and have my nervous breakdown. It would save time. “What about you?”

  “The Wayes are having a prayer vigil at their house this afternoon. I thought I’d go.”

  “I didn’t know you were close to them.”

  Todd shrugs. “We know them through church. . . . Would you like to come?”

  Oh, hell no—then again, Tally would be there and I could return the diary. Staring at Todd, the opportunity seems kind of perfect.

  Perfectly dreadful.

  “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  “You know, you could do a lot with what happened to you, Wicket. You could turn it into an opportunity to help others.”

  Like he did? I don’t think I have it in me. I damn sure know I don’t have the words anyone would need to hear. “The Wayes are not . . . big fans of mine.”

  Todd nods like he was expecting this. “I understand. Mrs. Waye told me all about it one day before Sunday school. But you’re not that girl anymore, Wicket. You don’t have to be afraid, but it’s okay if you don’t want to come.”

  Todd takes my coffee mug and turns toward the kitchen. “Bren wanted you to stay quiet, rest. I think she was planning to take you to get your nails done later—”

  “Todd?” His name sounds all strangled, and we both pretend not to notice. “I’ll come.”

  If only because it’s my best inroad to Tally, and I’ll take what I can get.

  “Great! And you’re sure you’ll be okay? I mean . . . after your mom and what happened yesterday . . .”

  I’m kind of glad he’s fumbling. It makes him seem less assured, less heroic, less . . . dad-like. I hate thinking about Todd in those terms, but it’s true. Todd is practically a sitcom dad come to life. He’s someone you could confide in, someone who would cheer you on, someone who would never hit you. He’s pretty much the exact opposite of my real dad.